Bide a while with me, child, and sit by the fire. I will tell you a story from the older days, a story of the witch Baba Yaga who dwelt in the forests of vast Russia. What’s that? You know of Baba Yaga, you say? You have heard the stories, told you as you sat at the knees of your grandparents? Well, perhaps you know the old witch, and perhaps you don’t. Sit now and listen, and you shall judge.
There once lived, in a little hut at the edge of a great forest, a young husband and his wife. The husband did labors for villagers who lived a mile down the river, while the wife tended to the house and the little garden. They lived alone, but this had not always been so. Once they had a daughter, a child who laughed and smiled and filled their hearts with delight. The girl had met with a terrible end; she fell into the river while playing, and so she drowned. The husband and his wife could not be consoled, and their little home was now dark and silent.
Everyone in the village knew of the death of the little girl and so were kind to the young husband as he came into town to perform his labors, and to his wife when she came to barter or buy. The sadness of their loss could not be lifted, however, and so the long months passed.
On a day when the husband came into the town to repair a door at the church, the old priest there looked on the sadness of the husband and pitied him. “It is still hard for you, the loss of your child,” the priest said.
“It is hard, especially for my wife,” said the husband. “She does not speak, and we are lonely. Happiness is lost to us.”
The priest nodded, and was quiet for a time. Then he looked at the husband and said, “I speak to you now not as a steward of God, but as a man and a friend. You should go and seek aid.”
“But who can aid us? There is nothing that can be done, there is no one.”
The priest looked around as though afraid to be overheard, though it was only he and the young husband in the church. He stepped closer and said, “There is Baba Yaga.”
The younger man laughed. “Baba Yaga!” he said bitterly. “Fine talk from a priest!”
“You mock what you do not understand,” the priest replied sternly. “Do you think I speak lightly? I know more than a tradesman of such matters.”
“You speak of stories meant to frighten children.”
“Tales are often words wrapped around truth. So it is with Baba Yaga. She has been seen and heard, here and there, by those who are no longer children. They know it not, or else they tell themselves that it was but the night mist, or the howl of the wild wind.”
The young husband paused, and no longer laughed. “But she is fearsome – as the stories go,” he said.
“Fearsome, yes, and older than the world. She is a grandmother, and a demon. Only the desperate seek her, driven by need.”
“But what will she do?”
“Whatever she will,” said the priest. “Her judgment is harsh. The choice is yours – seek her, or do not.”
The husband put away his tools. He looked at the priest. “How shall I find her?”
“Into the deep heart of the forest you must go,” the priest replied. “If your need is great, you will find her – but it is easier by far to seek Baba Yaga than to return.”
In his home, the young husband pondered the words of the priest. He looked to his wife who knelt tending the fire, her face pale in the flickering light. Grief came over him as though for the first time, and he knew that he must do something.
“There is work for me at the woodcutter’s, beyond the hills,” he said to her. “The axle of his waggon needs repair. I must leave in the morning.”
This was not true; the woodcutter’s waggon needed no repair. His wife could not doubt the tale, however. “I will prepare a lunch for you,” was all that she said. The husband felt a keen of guilt within him. He had deceived his wife, and not for the first time. But as men will, he told himself that it was all for her good.
Before the sun rose the next day, the young husband took his leave. His pouch held biscuits and salted meat, and his flask was filled with water. He turned once to wave to his wife who stood in the door of their hut, then walked along the path and did not look back again. After a turn of the path, where he could no longer been seen from his home, he turned to his right and entered the forest.
(To be continued…)
